Old Time Family Baseball

The Blogathon is Coming.

(Updated 1/20/13)

Today is Monday. And come Saturday, starting at 11 am Eastern, 8 am Pacific, the Old Time Family Baseball blogathon supporting Doctors Without Borders will begin. For the uninitiated, I will be posting every half hour for 24 hours with a full day of guest posts from some of the best baseball bloggers in the business the next day to support Doctors Without Borders. Last year we raised $2,000. This year, we can do much better. Click here to donate now.

Oh, and did I forget that for every single donation, even just a single dollar, enters you into a raffle for a number of amazing prizes? Yes, seriously. And we’ve got a bunch of great prize packages like:

Out of the Park Baseball

Thanks to the wonderful people at OOTP for donating a download of both the desktop AND mobile version of the most realistic and addicting baseball simulation game ever created. And I would know. I have long been a player of this game, watching my sleep schedule fall to pieces as I my 2017 Pirates fall apart because, as it turns out, I’m a terrible GM. Check out Out of the Park Baseball here.

Ebbets Field Flannels

Do you love amazingly crafted baseball gear? Have you always wanted to show your support of the barnstorming House of David or display the amazing Oakland Oaks logo atop your head? Well, you’re in luck. The good folks at Ebbets Field Flannels have donated a $30 gift certificate good for anything at Ebbets.com. I would try and tell you what my favorite product of theirs is, but since my closet is full of them, I can’t really say. Check them out here.

Baseball Prospectus

Do you love excellent writing, intelligent analysis, and statistical wizardry? Then you probably already subscribe to Baseball Prospectus. If you don’t, you’re in luck. The good folks at BP have donated three subscriptions and two copies of the two-volume Best of Baseball Prospectus. Do you want them? Then brother (or sister) all you need to do is donate. So go forth.

MLB.com Gift Cards

If you like hats and jerseys and tee-shirts and bobbleheads and baseball cards and those weird…things…designed by baseball players and could maybe be worn as body art, guess what? We have two $25 MLB.com gift cards up for grabs. All you have to do is donate and you’re entered to win. That’s pretty easy, right?

Book Learning

You like to read? Awesome. Because you’ll need to carve out some time to read Satchel Paige’s Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, New York State Museum’s beautiful Diamonds Are Forever, featuring artists and writers on the game we all love, Playing for Keeps, a history of early baseball, and The Entitled, a novel that Mike Schmidt calls a “baseball masterpiece.”

And if there is anyone that knows literature, it’s Mike Schmidt.

Book Learning With Pictures

Maybe you like your books with a little more visceral action. Then you’ll thrill at the cheesy and unauthorized stories about Jose Canseco, Jimmy Piersall, and Jim Abbott. And don’t forget about Adam Beechen’s Dugout about a fictional West Coast baseball team whose last hope is a prison break.

The Joy of Cinema

Every year, I close out the blogathon while live blogging a few movies because, come on, the hours of 4 until 8 am are really, really hard. Once I’m finished watching these, I’ll send them on to you. So enjoy Ball of Wax, the anti-Bull Durham about a ballplayer purposefully driving the rest of his team insane, Kill the Umpire/Safe at Home, a Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris feature, and finally, we’ll close it out with the Troma-produced, probably soft core porn softball adventure, Squeeze Play. Hey, it was their first financial success.

Vinyl Memories

Next time you have a boy or girl over and you want to impress them, pull out these vinyl beauties and enjoy the warm tones of Vin Scully narrating the 1981 Dodgers or Monte Moore’s take on Charles Finley’s 1972 A’s team. If that doesn’t make he or she fall madly in love with you, well, clearly they’re a dud.

Little Pieces of Cardboard

How do we mark the passage of time? By a clock? Our accomplishments? No, obviously not. Rather, the only way to accurately measure our lives is by looking back at our baseball card collection. Add to it with these unopened packages of baseball cards from the 80s, 90s, and today! Maybe you’ll get a Bob Hamelin rookie!

Big Leagues Monthly:

Copies of the new digital season preview from Big Leagues Monthly will be sent out to ten lucky raffle winners. The magazine, getting a new twice-monthly revamp soon, has been loading up for their big season preview and this is the only way you’ll be able to read it for free.

FantasyTrade 411 Preview Guide

Trying to get ready for fantasy season? Don’t know which utility infielder has the best chance of breaking out? Then you’ll want to make sure you grab a copy of the forthcoming FantasyTrade 411 preview guide. Otherwise, I guess, enjoy coming in fourth again.

All of those prizes are up for grabs and all you have to do is donate to Doctors Without Borders. Which you should be doing anyway because of the important work the organization is doing to bring international and impartial medical aid across the globe. So donate now, help make the world a better place, and put yourself in a position to win any of these fantastic prizes.

So please, give what you can and share this with your friends, family, and perhaps even some enemies. Let’s do something wonderful together. One more time: donate now.